(2018) in Search of Authenticity: Věra Chytilová's Films from Two Eras
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Čulík, J. (2018) In search of authenticity: Věra Chytilová's films from two eras. Studies in Eastern European Cinema, 9(3), pp. 198-218. (doi:10.1080/2040350X.2018.1469197) This is the author’s final accepted version. There may be differences between this version and the published version. You are advised to consult the publisher’s version if you wish to cite from it. http://eprints.gla.ac.uk/161192/ Deposited on: 05 June 2018 Enlighten – Research publications by members of the University of Glasgow http://eprints.gla.ac.uk In search of authenticity: Věra Chytilová’s films from two eras The Czech New Wave filmmakers, including Chytilová, were undoubtedly influenced by the French cinéma vérité approach, yet the reasons why they had embraced the principles of authenticity and integrity were entirely their own, stemming as they did from their own local political and social experiences at that time. In the 1960s, Chytilová subverted ideology not only by concentrating on authenticity, but also by formal experimentation. This article will deal with the following research question: How did the political and cultural circumstances of the day in two different eras, in the liberal 1960s and in the post-invasion 1970s and 1980s, influence Věra Chytilová´s working method as a film maker and her possibilities to express in her film work what she intended to say. In examining Chytilová´s work in the political, social and cultural context of the times, the article will use standard structuralist methodology, assessing the meaning of Chytilová´s filmatic texts, using the work of the Czech structuralist Jan Mukařovský as an inspiration (Mukařovský 1977). Věra Chytilová (1929 – 2014) was the first woman ever who was allowed to study film direction at FAMU, the Film Academy in Prague.1 She was one of the seven students, chosen out of a hundred applicants, who were admitted to the class of film director Otakar Vávra2 and who formed the backbone of the Czech New Wave, an inventive and highly creative cinematographic movement, characteristic for the liberalising Czechoslovakia of the 1960s. All the other members of the Otakar Vávra class were men. Chytilová was 28 when she was admitted for study at the Prague Film School in 1957. She says that one of the reasons she was accepted was that Vávra wanted to have at least some ‘mature’ students in his class. She started studying at FAMU when cultural and political liberalisation was slowly beginning in post-Stalinist Czechoslovakia, so her unorthodox, defiant and provocative attitude was not immediately punished.3 Before being admitted for study at FAMU, Chytilová made a number of false starts. She began studying architecture at university in Brno, when she gave that up, she worked as a technical draughtswoman and a laboratory assistant and then, in 1953-1957, in a number of auxiliary jobs at the Prague Barrandov Film Studios. These early experiences are extremely important for her development as an artist. Her early films are a reflection of the detachment and of the existential confusion of her younger years. However, through all the regimes that she experienced, she always 1 retained her fierce independence, demanding the right to make all decisions about her film making. This was not always easy or possible. In all periods of her life, her films were regarded as outrageous by some people, either because of her bold formal experimentation, or because of her social and political engagement. Chytilová’s films from the 1960s are full of energy and innovation. But at the onset of ‘normalisation’, in the wake of the August 1968 Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, Chytilová was prevented from making films for six years. When she was allowed to return to film making in the mid-1970s, it was under conditions of censorship and administrative harassment. How did the new situation impact on the style and the message of her films? This article will deal with Chytilová’s contribution to world cinema in the 1960s, when she was able to work without commercial and ideological pressure, and with the transformation of Chytilová’s approach to her work under the pressure of the normalisation era. How much of her original vision and philosophy was she able to retain in the changed atmosphere of the 1970s and 1980s? With hindsight, it seems clear that Chytilová’s working method, beliefs and philosophy were the results of her personal experiences of becoming an adult in the period of late Stalinism and early liberalisation of the second half of the 1950s. She was undoubtedly influenced as a filmmaker by the relatively free atmosphere at the Prague Film Academy during the time of her studies there. The young filmmakers of the Czech New Wave were irritated by political propaganda and by an ideological approach which they saw all around them. In response to this, they set out to re-examine reality, regardless of any ideology. They respected that life is basically unknowable: ‘We wanted to go into the streets, to film easily, but to film real life. But not to connect it. To retain mystery in what we filmed. Not to lead the viewer so that he would know everything. Not to say what we don’t know. Not to make decisions. Not to offer solutions,’ said Chytilová about their approach. Ivan Passer added: ‘We were posing questions: What is reality? It was a search for a definition of very simple things. Because they were all deformed.’4 It was a unique feature of film making in Czechoslovakia in the 1960s, that filmmakers were almost totally free from the commercial dictates of the market. As a result, a culture of elitism arose amongst Czech filmmakers of the 1960s. Filmmakers including Chytilová felt free to experiment with their medium. ‘They warned me at the studios that I will break my neck [by making Sedmikrásky/Daisies],’ said Chytilová. ‘But I did want to break my neck.’5 2 The notion of elitism, in operation in Czechoslovakia in the second half of the 1960s must be explained. A society which was not governed by the commercial principle had come into being. Thus writers, artists and film makers were increasingly free to address society with their experimental works. At the same time, most of them, like Chytilová, were deeply interested in communicating with the public. And the public were interested in their work because in an atmosphere of authoritarianism, it took over the role of public political discourse. A number of commentators see Chytilová as an early feminist.6 T It is true that her powers of observation are broader and deeper than were the powers of observation of a standard male film maker of the time.7 She was trying to look at the world form the point of view of women, and allowed them to speak because she respected them as human beings. But she denied that she was a feminist.8 She said that she did not believe in feminism, but in individualism. ‘I am an enemy of stupidity and simple-mindedness in both men and women,’ she said many times.9 Chytilová sympathised with young women, and, unusually for her times, gave them space and analysed their attempts at interaction with the world around them. She did show that for many men, women are inferior beings, slabs of meat, sex objects. She showed that while men want sex, women want a fair hearing which they almost never get. Chytilová had many female protagonists in her films and her sympathy for their predicament remained unabated for her whole cinematic career. Nevertheless, she was quite brutal of showing the idiocy of both men and women. Throughout her career as a film director, Chytilová was committed to morality, civic engagement and opposition to ‘stupidity’ (including that of the state). She was concerned with the relentless passage of time, repeatedly giving warnings that our time on this earth is limited and that we should not waste our lives on nonsense. The relentless passage of time is a theme that appears in most of her films, implicitly or explicitly. Chytilová’s working method From the beginning of her career, Chytilová was praised for creating the genre of ‘sociological film’ in Czechoslovakia. Commentators have tried to define this genre as ‘documentary film making with a strong interest in social issues’.10 In this, she was undoubtedly influenced by the techniques of ‘cinéma vérité’. However, Chytilová’s ‘sociological’ documentaries were carefully scripted and acted. Nevertheless, the script was only a point of departure. Chytilová was capable of totally 3 changing the direction of her films on the set.11 The bulk of Chytilová’s creative work was always done in the editing room. She specialised, in cooperation with her editors, in creating sophisticated collages, concentrating on hidden inter- relationships between motifs and the meaning of individual shots. Jan Kučera sees Chytilová, along with some of the other Czech New Wave film makers, as part of the European avant-garde of the 1960s. In his view, these film makers were interested in the ‘internal region of the world which cannot be grasped by the senses’. They created a specific film language in order to express the spiritual reality of human existence. While in the West these experiments ended in pessimism, in the filmmakers’ distrust in human reason and freedom to act, Czech film makers were usually optimistic. ‘It is true that the films made by the Czech New Wave filmmakers are often criticised for being incomprehensible or elitist, but people need to realise that these filmmakers were trying to solve new problems and were attempting to create an entirely new film language,’12 says Kučera.